page_title: Burns, Oregon
section_title: Geography
hierarchical_section_title: Burns, Oregon / Geography
caption_attribution_description: Silvies River at Burns in the U.S. state of Oregon. View is from the Oregon Route 78 bridge over the river.
context_page_description: Burns is a city in and the county seat of Harney County, in the U.S. state of Oregon. According to the 2010 census, the population was 2,806. Burns and the nearby city of Hines are home to about 60 percent of the people in the sparsely populated county, by area the largest in Oregon and the ninth largest in the United States.
  The Burns–Hines region has a high-desert climate but was much wetter in the recent geologic past. The Harney Basin was the largest of many depressions in which lakes formed in southeastern Oregon during the late Pleistocene. Remnants of an ancient lake that reached as far north as Burns are at the center of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, south of the city.
  Northern Paiutes or their ancestors, who were hunter-gatherers, have lived in the region for thousands of years. Since the arrival of Euro-Americans in the 19th century, cattle ranching and other forms of agriculture have dominated land use in the area. In 1930, logging in the mountains north of Burns led to the creation of Hines, a lumber company town, and the timber industry remained important to the local economy until the 1990s.
context_section_description: Harney County is the largest county in Oregon and the ninth largest in the United States. It covers about 10,000 square miles (26,000 km²) but has a total population of only about 7,600. Most of that population lives in Burns or Hines, about 2 miles (3 km) southwest of Burns. Burns had about 2,800 residents in 2010 and Hines about 1,600, for a total of 4,400, nearly 60 percent of the county population.
   The city is 132 miles (212 km) east of Bend, and 132 miles (212 km) west of Ontario, Oregon, on U.S. Route 20 at its intersection with U.S. Route 395. Burns is about 200 miles (322 km) south of Pendleton. Oregon Route 78 runs between Burns and communities to the southeast including Crane, Princeton, and Burns Junction, about 100 miles (161 km) away. A fourth highway, Oregon Route 205, links the city to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, 36 miles (58 km) to the south, and to Frenchglen, further south near Steens Mountain.
  According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 3.55 square miles (9.19 km²), all land.
caption: Silvies River east of Burns along Oregon Route 78
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D90", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Ver.1.00", "Image DateTime": "2010:10:25 12:18:27", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "228", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "31196", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "300", "Thumbnail YResolution": "300", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "31324", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "9130", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/400", "EXIF FNumber": "10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Unidentified", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "200", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2010:10:25 12:18:27", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2010:10:25 12:18:27", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "9/2", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "42", "EXIF SubSecTime": "00", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "00", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "00", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4288", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2848", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "31166", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 1, 2, 0, 1]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "63", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}